If you’re refering to the Montezuma campaign and the colonisation of the New World, it’s outside of what’s considered the Middle Ages. AoE2’s timeline isn’t limited to the Medieval Era and covers parts of the Late Antiquity and Early Modern Era. The Spanish civ in game mostly covers Castile and Aragon, for most of the time period, and while Aragon was relatively influencial in the Miediterranean before the two kingdoms were united, Castile was mostly a regional power (thpugh arguably stronger in said region than Aragon) until the late 15th century.
I’d rather avoid having dynasties and religious sects as playable civs in game. If Saracens got split, I think it should be into stuff like Yemeni, Bedouins and Levantines.
We already have this in the Dynasties of India. Yemeni? I think they called something else back then. Arabs is too generic. I think Ummayads, Abbassids and Hashashins are quite good names, to preserve history and to prevent religious strife between the Arab players (if such exist).
Yes, I was refering to the Montezuma and the Pachacuti campaigns and yes, I am aware that AoE2’s scope is wider then Middle and Exploration Ages (the latter is better covered in Age of Empires III).
Not really, all civs in this dlc are still relatively large umbrellas. The Hindoustani civ covers all Turkish/Persian people which settled in India during the Middle Ages or Early Modern Era, or just conquered a small part of it (Ghazvanids, Ghorids, Delhi Sultanate, Sur, Mughal Empire and Deccan), the Gurjara are quite a large group too, the Bengali cover all Northeast Indo-Aryan peoples (including Assamese and Odia), and the Dravidians are an ethnolinguistic group.
I guess you could call them Qahtani, but then very few people would know what they stand for at first glance.
It is a very restrictive selection, most of the Arab world isn’t even represented in this selection. The entire Arabian Peninsula disappear, which is quite ironic. And if you really want to go for dynasties, where are the Fatimids and Ayyubids? Besides, I’m not sure the Umayyad and Abbassid caliphate really differed from each other in terms of military traditions, and did the Hashashin ever ruled over an actual state with its very own armies?
Himyarites is a better name but even then I think better to just call it Yemenis. Just checked on wikipedia (and rechecked on the bibliography) and Yemen seems to derive from the word “south” in south arabic, and it seems okay to still use it
And how will you break those umbrellas? Like, ok, we add the Cholas and 6 more to the South Asian tab. The maximum amount a tab can hold is 11 scenarios (as seen in Europe). Lets assume we will fill up South Asian tab with all the umbrella civs (all will be Indian, fyi), We are also limited to 8 color choices. As of Dynasties of India we have:
*Asia - Blue
*Africa - Yellow
*Americas - Green
*Europe - Red
*Western Europe - Cyan
*Eastern Europe - Grey/Black
*South Asia - Orange/Brown
*? - Pink/Purple
Considering that White color is used for Gaia civs, it won’t be possible to make for example Indian Tribes DLC (Ghazvanids, Ghorids, Delhi Sultanate, Sur, Mughal Empire and Deccan) to be of that color. Or are you suggesting that after Pink/Purple color will be added as a DLC this year, we can just toss those Ghazvanids, Ghorids, etc., as civs without campaigns?
For those to be included we would need to split Saracens into those and add 2 more Islamic civs (Umayyad and Abbassid), and you have a good Caliphate Dynasties DLC.
I don’t even understand where you’re going with this. If you’re saying we can’t add new civs because there are not enough colors for the campaign bookmarks, then the problem is the same whatever you want to add. Also, I wasn’t even saying those umbrella civs should be broken, just that contrary to what you pretended earlier, Dynasty of India didn’t add dynasties or religious sects as civs… So I doubly don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve with this demonstration.
As Temudhun has told you, the criterion for civs on this game is mostly ethnic groups and cultures, not dynasties. See for example how we have Chinese rather than the Tang or Franks rather than Capets
And by the way, the Umayyad dynasty lasted several more centuries in Spain, but their culture there was very different from that of their former empire based on Damascus.
This guy’s design and bonus and unit distribution method is… extreme. His Jurchen civ for example doesn’t get pikes or Knights or Camels and the compensation is… an Elite Lancer upgrade that grants +4 vs cavalry! So pretty much any civ with cavalry can press the I win button.
How else would you call those (Ghazvanids, Ghorids, Sur, and Deccan) Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire are civs, won’t argue about those, but the rest, if for example split of Bengali or Hindustani would be unavoidable, how would those be called if those Empires were tiny? I mean, I don’t want to be rude to anyone here, but isn’t Deccan a plateau?
Edit: Just looked those up. Sur in fact was a dynasty and henceforth an empire, the same is with Deccan. However, they are all Afghan or Persian dynasties and have almost nothing to do with India. Correct me if I am wrong though, but Ghazvanids and Ghorids are technically tribes. The name of the game is Age of Empires, the game consists of civilizations, if you brake a civ you end up with tribes. Again, I might be wrong, and will take my words back if proven otherwise.
Some tribes did become civs, others didn’t. Are you suggesting that every tribe is a civ? If so, it is you who is being ignorant. The Aztecs for example fought against other tribes (and I am quoting the ingame history of The Aztecs). With that said, I need to assume Chanca in Pachacuti campaign is a tribe, not a civ. I bet there are tens of tribes exist now in Africa and Oceania, none of which became civs. Maybe I am wrong, I won’t deny that, but I am far from being ignorant.
Hmmm, this here shows up you are indeed ignorant about sociology, anthropology and history. There’s no such a thing called “tribes needs to evolve this much to become a civilization”. “Tribes” isn’t a good term to begin with as it is full of an eurocentric concept of how a societies should be
It’s a somewhat complex topic, so I’ll try to summarize it:
Tribes < Kingdom Tribal < Kingdom < Empire.
There may be different ways of classifying a specific “society” or “people”, however, there are certain criteria by which a society can be considered “Civilization” and for that the Sumerian civilization can be taken as a starting point. It is considered the first civilization.
Some people may take offense at considering certain cultures/societies/peoples as “tribes” as they are often taken to be isolated primitive organizations. There is also the case of the “Hordes” and their “evolution” called “Khanates” which, although they were nomadic societies, managed to have an Imperial organization that could govern more than one hundred million inhabitants.
As a personal opinion, I consider a civilization to be a society developed enough to have a “concept of belonging to a nation” where duties and rights by the “state” are involved (paying taxes, being protected by the army, etc. )
One thing you mentioned and I agree is that in the AoE saga the word “tribe” is commonly used to refer to pre-Columbian American nations, for example, the Chanka nation is considered a kingdom that had started expansionist campaigns, even after defeated by the Incas, they were integrated into the Empire as a “subject nation”* (similar to the case of Bulgaria, which was later absorbed by the Ottoman Empire). AoE campaign writers may have been unfamiliar with pre-Columbian American “type of government” concepts.
As personal advice the word “tribe” is a social, political and anthropological concept full of controversy; you should use that word for isolated social groups that often come together only temporarily for a common goal.
I recommend this page that can broadly explain these concepts (without getting into controversy).
Most of the definitions you use sound more like a Paradox game gameplay mechanics than actual social science. In academic fields, a tribe is a social group sharing a common ancestor, and it’s not used in opposition to civilisation or organised state. In modern Arab states, peoples are still organised in tribes, for instance.
As for civilisations being defined by the idea of belonging to a same nation, well… then most of Europe was made of tribes until the 19th or 20th century. The concept of nation is historically quite recent, and certainly didn’t exist in Ancient Mesopotamia.
In fact, I’m relying on the EU4 government type rank system to explain in a simplified way (since it’s also a historically based game).
To all this, I must ask: Are you assuming that Paradox’s gameplay system is not based on social science?
If we review history, we can take the 12 tribes that formed the kingdom of Israel (according to the Bible and the Torah), these tribes before being ruled by a king (Saul) were ruled by “judges”. Other more modern cases are the “Scottish clans” that belonged to the kingdom of Scotland, there is also the case of the Republic of Chechnya whose structure is made up of tribes and clans; I could continue with some examples but in my perception it is the following: tribal groups can form a nation, but not all tribal groups (in history) were able to form a nation.
Also keep in mind that a nation made up of tribes can be made up of different ethnic groups, there can be “nations without territory” as is the peculiar case of the gypsies, or there can be a people with territory that is divided into several countries such as the Kurds.
That would be something new for me, I would appreciate if you could provide me with some working examples.
Obviously the studies have been refined as the language barrier has faded, current studies worldwide now collect information from around the world and thus achieve a better perception and “equivalences” of social organizations around the world, and Although the Internet is a double-edged sword, we must recognize the work of specialists and researchers who are willing to risk their reputation to publicize an idea, if a good part of the current scientific community agrees on an idea, such as , that the Sumerians were the first civilization, then that statement is most likely correct.
I admit that I am not a historian, sociologist or anything similar; the only experience I have is from my profession and I try to make this community understand what I learned through my knowledge and experiences; But what I am sure of is: if you think you can prove something that is different or contrary to the knowledge that the scientific community possesses, then you deserve the Nobel Prize
For game mechanics, they obviously have to simplfy things quite a bit. It would be way too complicated and unfun both for the devs and the players to represent the diversity of humankind without some shortcuts, especially in a strategy game.
None of those instances disprove what I say (and most of it is unrelated to the discussion, I think). You could also say that some nations or civilisations never went through the tribal phase.
I don’t have specific sources for this becauseit mostly come from what my teachers told me in university, but to summarise: The modern idea of nation is born from the 18th century’s age of Enlightenment during which the idea that a state, a land and a people could be tied together without being the common property of a ruler, and it evolved during the 19th century, especially with the Italian and German ideas of nation being tied to a common culture and language (with the racial aspect also being considered a key part at the time, before being dropped after World War 2 for… quite obvious reasons)
I didn’t say that the Sumerians were not the first civilisation (though I would rather say that it’s the first agrarian civilisation, which is somewhat different), just that the idea of nation didn’t exist in Ancient Sumer contrary to what you said earlier. So by YOUR standards, Sumer shouldn’t be considered a civilisation.
I wasn’t trying to offend anyone just stating the facts. To be honest, our human evolution started with a “tribe”. Later on, as you stated, the first civilizations emerge. However, that didn’t happen until the first settlements, the so-called city-states that started to emerge in Turkey.
Yes. A nomad is technically a tribe, yet the Mongols managed to turn their “tribe” into an empire. Despite creating a massive empire, they used “tribal tactics” to achieve that goal.
Same view here, just different implementation. My view of a “tribe” is anything that failed to become a civ. For example, Zapotecs weren’t known to develop anything to progress their “tribe” and therefore were later defeated and absorbed by the Aztecs. I bet there was 100s of tribes between the Ice Age and Spanish arrival in 1600s. We just know so much about Aztecs, Mayans and the Incas because they conquered other tribes and left little to nothing of them for us to aw about.
Yet, the game was developed by Americans which had some knowledge in that field.
That is exactly how I use it. For example, the Amazonians are technically a “tribe”. Native Americans (even though some do live in the same houses as we are and work at the same jobs as us) are still technically a “tribe” because some still live in wigwams (or, maybe they have a much neutral name for their tents). Yet, I would say that the Natives aren’t a 100% “tribe” as they were. They are still 10%-20% tribal hence for Indian reservations that are still exist (although those aren’t as abundant as they were in say during the the Age of Exploration in 1600-1800s.
Again, please except my apologies folks if I used the word “tribe” to denounce someone’s culture or ethnicity, I just tried to state some facts which this game also have plenty of.
It is understandable, although I admit that “my version” is completely based on the EU 4 game, what I like about this “classification” is that it groups the “Native Americans” into 2 large groups: the monarchists and the tribals. “Monarchists” have very similar gameplay to the European nations game type while “Tribals” have their own gameplay that includes different buildings, custom soldier skins, and different forms of government.
In my opinion, the Native American “ranking” form presented in EU4 is the most accurate and also gives better gameplay. If a higher social classification including more complex terms and concepts is used in a game with historical bases, the game will become more complicated and less fun.
It’s understandable, it may be the case that a specific “word” or “terminology” can mean 2 different things to 2 people, especially if those 2 people are from different countries and/or cultures, that’s why I only recommend being a little more explicit to avoid misunderstandings.
The correct expression would be: “the Mongols used the tribes as a base to form their social organization”. The tribes were the “cells” that made up a good part of the Mongol Empire (they had even conquered nations with a more complex social structure such as the Chinese and Mongols), talking about the “unity of the Mongolian tribes” is a complex issue, but I could mention that In order for the Mongol Empire to manage its tribes, they devised the “Khanates” which is already considered a POLITICAL ENTITY.
Talking about the political organization of the pre-Columbian Empires and Kingdoms is complex, but to summarize I could say that these kingdoms are very similar to the European kingdoms, they even have several similarities to the Eurasian Bronze Age Kingdoms; One of its main characteristics is that they had “Estates of the realm”, it must also be taken into account that Mesoamerica and the Andes are 2 of the 6 cradles of civilization. As you say, much of the information from the pre-Columbian nations has been lost, however, there is still a considerable amount of information that was preserved through chronicles and oral traditions (being supported by archaeology), for example, this is how it is now It is known that 4 pre-Columbian empires existed in the Andes: Incas, Chimu, Wari and Tiwanaco.
Yes, but keep in mind that nothing is perfect and there are elements that can be improved over time. Just because something is in a game doesn’t mean it’s right (sometimes developers take “artistic liberties” for gameplay purposes)
That is correct, but it should also be mentioned that it is the specific case of current Native Americans, 2 parameters must be taken into account: 1) Time when an event occurred: current tribal organizations and the parameters of interest may be different from those that existed 300 or 400 years ago; the historical context must also be analyzed. Example: in 1867 the Russians sold the territory of Alaska to the USA at a low price because its climate made it difficult to colonize and its main economic activity was seal hunting… now it is known that Alaska has a large amount of proven reserves of oil (raw material of little value in the year in which Russia sold Alaska)… this purchase-sale was carried out without prior consultation with the Native Americans of Alaska (currently morally unthinkable action). 2) Geographical location: it is evident that Amazonian tribal organizations are different from North American tribal organizations… it is even different according to the criteria and regulations of each country, for example: the Amazon region is part of the countries: Brazil, Colombia , Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.; and each of these countries has its own constitution and its own way of integrating the “Amazonian tribes” into their respective countries, which varies from complete autonomy to “forcing them to integrate into the country.”
The issue of social organization is very complex and for now I doubt that there is any specialist on the subject in this humble community, for now what can be done is to try to integrate the different “social concepts” of the members of this community, which apparently It is composed of citizens of different countries
